Esteghlal Ardabil (Iran),
Taxirani FC (Iran), Tejarat Bank FC (Iran), Persepolis (Iran),
Arminia Bielefeld (Germany), Bayern Munich (Germany), Hertha
Berlin (Germany), Al-Shabbab (UAE), Persepolis (Iran), Saba
Battery (Iran)
Honours
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Biography
Ali Daei (born March 21, 1969) is an Iranian football player who
is a striker for Saba Battery Tehran and the Iran national
football team. Daei, the captain of the Iranian national team,
is most noted for being the all-time leading goal scorer in
international matches.
Born in Ardabil, Iran, he played for his home team Esteghlal
Ardabil when he was 19, missing out an a chance to play in the
J. League due to military service. Although tactically speaking,
Daei is not the greatest of all Iranian footballers, his fame is
attributed mostly to his goal scoring. Due to Iran's tournament
schedule, he has played very few matches for his clubs, yet he
has managed to score frequently. He is one of the greatest
strikers in the history of football and is ranked first in most
goals in international matches. He is considered to be the
finest striker in the history of the Asian game. In the 1998
World Cup Qualifying round, he was top on the charts scoring 38
goals in 56 matches. Including his famous 4 goal haul against
South Korea and 8 goals against Maldives. His experience with
world-class FC's opened the way for other Asian players such as
Hidetoshi Nakata and Mehdi Mahdavikia. Daei was named the
world's top scorer in official international competitions by the
International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS),
having scored 20 goals in competitive matches for Iran in 1996.
After playing for minor league teams: Taxirani and Bank Tejarat,
Daei joined one of the country's premier squads, Persepolis (Pirouzi).
As Arminia Bielefeld joined the Bundesliga they signed a
contract with Daei and his teammate Karim Bagheri. Many other
Persepolis players made contracts with several different foreign
clubs at the same time, yet Daei proved to be a very successful
franchise. Daei was hand picked for the Bayern Munich club by
legendary footballer Franz Beckenbauer, president of the club,
who rated him as a world-class centre-forward (although he
usually plays as striker). He made a famous four million
deutschemark move from Arminia Bielefeld to the four-time
European Cup winners, which was a record for Asian players at
the time. Daei also opened the door for Vahid Hashemian who
became the second Iranian to join the prestigous German club in
2004.
Daei became the first Asian player to feature in a UEFA
Champions League match. Yet with Bayern's 15 international
players and the Iranian national team's poor scheduling, Daei
had found very little time for playing. In Germany he was known
to be a true gentleman, famous for the way he treated the fans.
Daei would always sign autographs to Bayern fans and was often
the centre of attention, he was featured in OPEL car commercials.
Amazingly he usually did manage to score when given a chance to
play. Still Ali Daei was unhappy with his position in the club
and decided to make a move to Hertha Berlin before the end of
his three year contract after Bayern won the 1999 Bundesliga. He
played in the Champions League with Hertha Berlin becoming the
teams best scorer in the league with 3 goals. His famous match
against Chelsea gained him a lot of recognition, yet even in
Hertha he was not the talk of the town, since he was only
amongst one of the squad's many successful franchises, who were
to fulfill Hertha's Bundesliga and Champions League dreams.
At the same time he was very successful in international
competition scoring in practically every game and making new
records. He played in many World Teams in friendly continental
games. Yet Daei was still unable to maintain a stable position
in the squads starting line-up. In the year 2001 he was not
among the top scorers in the Asian Qualifying round and he did
not manage to take the team into the World Cup as captain for
the first time. After receiving offers from Rapid Vienna,
Glasgow Rangers, the J. League and a few English Premiership
teams, he decided that he was no longer fit to play world-class
football. He joined the UAE league at 34 years of age, signing a
contract with Al-Shabab as a free agent. In 2003 Daei quit the
UAE team and joined his old team in Tehran, Pirouzi. Daei moved
from Pirouzi to Saba Battery on a free tranfer for a modest
conract of around 300,000 American dollars.
Asides from his great sportsmanship on the pitch, Daei ran many
charitable organisations and used a great deal of his money in
support of the less fortunate. In his native Iran, Daei has been
seen as a role model for a sport with a terrible reputation,
when many prominent footballers are accused of criminal offences
or are involved with prostitutes, Daei has always brought about
a good image of himself. Today Daei owns his own football jersey
manufacturing company, making jerseys for Iranian Premiership
clubs, 2nd Division clubs world-wide and for the national team.
He has made very significant charitable donations and has made
appearances in charitable football matches world-wide (featuring
in the World vs. Bosnia match with Roberto Baggio and other
football legends). He also appeared in a UNICEF commercial with
superstar David Beckham and Madeline Albright, and has regularly
been seen working with the organisation.
Today Ali Daei has joined the exclusive circle of players with a
Century of Caps. In a November 28, 2003 Asian Cup qualifier in
Tehran against Lebanon, he scored his 85th international goal,
elevating him past Hungarian legend Ferenc Puskás to top the
all-time list of scorers in international matches (among men; he
trails women's leader Mia Hamm by over 50 goals). On November
17, 2004, he scored four goals against Laos in a World Cup
qualifier, giving him 102 goals and making him the first male
player to score 100 goals in international play.
Other Honours (individual) : Most Valuable Player and top scorer
of the 1994 Asian World Cup preliminary finals (4 goals,
Doha/Qatar); top scorer of the 1996 Asian Cup (8 goals, UAE);
named the world's top scorer in official international
competitions by the International Federation of Football History
and Statistics (IFFHS), having scored 20 goals in competitive
matches for Iran in 1996. Top goalscorer of the Iranian national
league in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995.
